The Origin of the Ryazan-Oka Cruciform Fibulae and the Genesis of the Local Military Elite

Semenov Alexander Sergueevich PhD in Physics and Mathematics CEO, Deep Dive Group, project "DNA-history of Russia" 119334, Russia, Moscow, ul. Leninsky Prospekt, 43, sq. 161 semyonov1980@mail.ru Other publications by this author     Gavrilov Aleksandr Petrovich Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. Head of the department "Museum of Local Lore" (Municipal Cultural Institution "Museum Historical and Cultural Complex" of the municipality - Shilovsky municipal district of the Ryazan region). 107078, Russia, Moscow, Sadovaya-Spasskaya str., 21/1 museum01@mail.ru

Kulakov Vladimir Ivanovich Doctor of History Professor, Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences 117036, Russia, Moscow, Dmitry Ulyanov str., 19 drkulakov@mail.ru

 The study of the Ryazan-Oka culture has been going on for more than 100 years.

Its main area is the Middle Pooch, with a significant tendency to dominate in the Volga-Oka interfluve from the first centuries of our era until the 60s of the VII century AD. With some probability, the Ryazan-Oka center, along with the Old Ladoga, can be considered as one of the points of laying the foundations of the Old Russian statehood. The author's team sets itself the task of clarifying certain issues of the formation of the Ryazan-Oka elite on the basis of the latest DNA data and studying the most important cultural artifacts - the cross-shaped fibulae of elite warriors.

The scientific novelty of the research is the combination of the study of objects of material culture with the latest DNA data. The study showed that the genesis of the most important attribute of the Ryazan-Oka elite - cross-shaped fibulae - can be associated with the shores of the Western Baltic and the North Sea (including Scandinavia). DNA data indicate the possible origin of a part of the military elite from the shores of the Baltic and the Northwestern part of the East European Plain. Thus, it is quite legitimate to raise the question of migrations (of population and material culture) to the Ryazan-Oka area from the northwest. Migrants could have East Germanic, Baltic, Early Slavic, Baltic-Finnish linguistic affiliation.

  IntroductionIn the first centuries of our era, Eastern Europe, especially along the northern border of the forest-steppe, was shaken by cultural changes.

A number of wars are taking place on the Oka-Don watershed, which are part of more global political events related to the repeated expansion into the forest zone, which took place with the participation of Sarmatian groups. (^[1], p.71) 

At the same time, the so-called "Zarubinets crisis" occurs, when the population of the Zarubinets settlements left them, stopped burying their dead in underground burial grounds and, having changed their habitats, sharply decreased in number (^[2], p. 232). Probably, the bearers of the Zarubinets culture fall into Sarmatian dependence (^[3], p.52). At the same time, according to K.F. Smirnov, stable communication is being established between the Finno-Ugric population and the Sarmatian-speaking "Aors". According to Strabo, "those Aorsi who lived between Meotida and the Caspian Sea were fugitives from among the peoples now living above," i.e., natives of some more remote "northern" lands" (^[4], p.16). The consequence of these processes was the appearance of monuments such as Andreevsky Kurgan with the subsequent mixing of the alien population with the Gorodetsky and, probably, Dyakov, ethno-cultural environment (^[5], pp. 93-94), and, then, the emergence of the Ryazan-Oka culture on their basis (^[6]).  However, all these turbulent processes did not end in the first centuries of our era, but led to increased contacts in the III-V centuries of the Ryazan-Ok people with Central Europe and the southwest, which led to the appearance of things from the Middle Pooch on the monuments of Estonia, and in the Volga-Ok interfluve - the appearance of multiple Western imports (^[7]). At this time, a number of Gorodetsky and Dyakov settlements cease to exist, which is marked with double-tip arrowheads and darts. They have multiple finds on the monuments of Gorodetsky and Dyakov cultures. It is fundamentally important that these tips appear in the Pooch at the same time as the carriers of the culture of the Ryazan-Oka burial grounds. Most often, these tips are found in ditches and on shafts. Perhaps their presence is connected with a significant event for the Ancient Oka of the I-III centuries A.D. - the very appearance of the culture of the Ryazan-Oka burial grounds (Fig.1-2.)

Fig. 1. Map of Ryazan-Oka monuments

Fig. 2. Centers of power of the Ryazan-Oka culture (A.P. Gavrilov)

Initially, three-bladed small arrowheads with a small number of double-bladed, double-bladed arrowheads appear on Gorodetsky and Dyakov settlements.  Then a wave rolls with massive spiral and petiolate arrows. The attribute of the last wave was settlements with inventory close to the Koshibeevsky burial ground, which died from plate, double-tip tips, as if cut out of a leaf. Gorodetsky and Dyakov population was assimilated by aliens in the shortest possible time. Thus, an iron umbon of a shield, a tongue of a buckle with transverse flutes at the base, fragments of a bracelet with expanded ends and a bracelet-shaped temporal ring were found at the settlement of Lukovnya-1. A three-bladed arrow from the Kuntsevo settlement was also found (^[8]) and a series of similar arrows found near the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery settlement (ZIAiHM collection). I.R. Akhmedov and M.M. Kazansky determine the dating of these objects in the 5th century A.D. and interpret them as evidence of the military expansion that the Moskvorechye region underwent in the 5th century A.D. (^[9], p. 174). The latter may be evidence of the flow of the Sarmatian wars into the Gothic wars. I.R. Akhmedov, M.B. Shchukin, M.M. Kazansky suggest that at the end of the IV–V century A.D. Moskvorechye and the Middle Oka became the scene of military operations, including because of the campaigns of the Gothic king Germanarikh (^[10], Fig. 43). The progress of expansion to the west is evidenced by the discovery at the settlement of Lukovnya-1 of a pendant with enamel inserts (^[11], Fig. 74), very close in shape to the fibula brooches of type VIIB, isolated by I.K. Frolov (^[12], Fig. 3, 7).

It should be noted that ornaments with enamels are not uncommon in the finds of the materials of the culture of the Ryazan-Oka burial grounds^[13].  Mapping of fibulae of this type allowed I.K. Frolov to suggest that they were products of production localized in northern Latvia – southern Estonia (^[12], p. 27). Thus, direct links with the Baltic States are quite likely, given also the presence of the Dyakov bow-shaped stripe in the fence of the Yabara in Estonia (^[14], Fig. 25). This defines the territory of modern Estonia as the extreme western point of military migrations of the Ryazan-Okians and their point of contact with the Goths, Eastern Balts and Esti (the ancestors of the Prussians are mentioned in Tacitus). In the future, it is necessary to highlight the circle of antiquities of contacts of this time among others. It is possible that the umbonoid tops of spiral bimetallic pins, rings with volutes, which were developed in Estonia, were brought from the Middle Oka, and temporal rings with a blade were also included in this process.

The returning Ryazan-Oka impulse absorbed a lot of Western (including Gothic) elements, as evidenced by the finds of Chernyakhovsky things and objects with excavated enamel. Historically, this event was imprinted in the "Getik" of Jordan, where the peoples of "Mordvins and Merya in Meschera" are mentioned^[15]. It is important that at the turn of the IV-V centuries and in the Ryazan-Oka environment itself, a number of cultural transformations are taking place, which is clearly expressed by the example of overlapping burials, as well as "robbed graves" known in the "western" area of the Ryazan-Oka burial grounds.  It was most likely in the IV and possibly at the beginning of the V century of our era. I.V. Belotserkovskaya highlights the horizon of the graves of dead people who became victims of military clashes in the second half of the V century ^[16].

At the same time, the Ryazan-Ok people, as a result of Western contacts, have their own special fashion for cross-shaped fibulae. It is possible that the addition of a special type of fibula was necessary for the allocation of Ryazan-Oka warriors as part of the national squads of the era of the Great Migration of Peoples.

   The origin of Ryazan-Oka cross-shaped fibulae according to archaeologyOne of the unique phenomena of the material culture of Eastern Europe of the epoch of the Great Migration of Peoples is the Ryazan-Oka fibulae.

In the depths of the forests of the Pooch region, within the traditional area of settlement of the Finno-Ugric tribes, two-dimensional fibulae were traditional, which existed in this ecumene for more than a thousand years. However, since the first penetration of the Sarmatians into the Volga-Oka interfluve, a wide range of Sarmatian and Roman three-dimensional fibulae has appeared, including status fibulae of the "Avcissa" type. By the III-IV century, they were replaced by crossbow-shaped and two-plate Chernyakhovsky fibulae, as well as numerous T-shaped fibulae of the provincial Roman type and their derivatives from the southern barbarium. Many of which were included in the Ryazan-Oka costume and received independent development on the Middle Oka.Ilya Raphaelevich Akhmedov, a leading researcher of the antiquities of the Ryazan region, paid considerable attention in his scientific works to the Ryazan-Oka fibulae related to the era of the Great Migration of Peoples.

In one of his articles, he created, using the typological method traditional for European archaeology (the location of artifacts along the line of genetic development from simple forms to complex ones), a typology of the finds of interest to us. Two series of fibulae were identified in their development, which had a chronological character. Unlike Ekaterina Ivanovna Goryunova, who linked the origin of the Ryazan-Oka cross-shaped fibulae with the Baltic tradition (^[17], p. 91), I.R. Akhmedov considered the T-shaped fibulae of the Chernyakhovsky culture to be the genetic precursors of the fasteners of interest to us (^[18], p. 107). In European archaeology, such fibulae are called "fibulae with bulbous tops of the spring rod" (German. die Zwiebelknopffibeln, hereinafter referred to as ZK fibulae). Initially, these clasps were accessories of the headdress of a Roman legionary of the IV century AD (^[19], p. 69), and were known to the bearers of Chernyakhovsky antiquities. The ZK fibulae structurally resembled Ryazan-Oka fibulae with a cross-shaped lower part of the body. However, if we carefully consider all the varieties of cross-shaped fibulae in Europe of the Attila era, we will see a complex and multifaceted picture of evidence of intertribal contacts at the turn of the epochs of antiquity and the early Middle Ages.To establish the origin of the cross-shaped Ryazan-Oka fibulae, their type-forming features should be identified, which has not been done before.

There are three of these features: the cruciform design of the lower part of the fibula body (when it is traditionally worn with the tip of the needle up for Barbaricum), a rectangular plate soldered to the center of the cruciform structure (casting is also possible) and a flattened end of the leg in the form of a rhombus or trapezoid. It is necessary to look for fasteners with these three signs in Europe of the era of the Great Migration of Peoples outside of Pooch.

 For the first time in the barbarian world, rhombic legs are represented in fibulae of type AVII,175, and trapezoidal endings of fibula legs with a garter needle receiver appear in late Roman times (phase C1) the fasteners of type AVII,181, common among the Germans of the Elbe River basin. In the north, the distribution area of fibulae of type AVII,181 covers part of the Jutland peninsula and southwestern Scandinavia (^[20], Abb.1, S. 252). Most likely, it is through the territory of modern Denmark that Scandinavians adopt the forms of the above–mentioned legs of crossbow-shaped fibulae and place them on the main version of the fibulae of northern Europe in the era of the Great Migration of Peoples - on cross-shaped fibulae that went back to ZK fasteners and spread in Scandinavia from phase D1 (^[21], S. 528, Abb. 122). With the probable mediation of the Scandinavians, this form of fibulae appears in small numbers on the Amber Coast (Fig. 1,1,2).

 The main array of such fibulae is represented on burial grounds in various regions of Scandinavia (Fig. 3,3-6).

Fig. 3. Fibulae with bulbous finials and fastener elements of types AVII,175 or AVII,181: 1 – border. Se-24 burial ground Seerappen/Lublino, Zelenograd district; 2 - border. L-25 burial ground Lauth/B. Isakovo, Guryevsky district; 3-6 – Gotland (Schweden) (1, 2 – ^[19], fig. 4; 5; 3-6 – ^[22], Taf. 1-3). At the same time, already in the first half of the V century AD, a square-shaped cast area appears between their three "fingers" on Scandinavian cross-shaped fibulae (Lunde-type fibulae - ^[21], Abb. 122,12), in the second half of the V century AD – the beginning.

VI century. acquiring a rectangular shape. At the same time, the trapezoidal end of the leg of these fibulae receives a blade-shaped outline (a Gammelsr?d-type fibula - ^[21], Abb. 122,16). At the same time, the back of the fibula is provided with a flattening of a rectangular shape. The two indicated signs of cross-shaped fibulae of the Gammelsr?d type (Fig. 4) prompted Anna Bitner-Vrublevskaya to the hypothesis about the influence of the Western Baltic fasteners of the Sternfu?fibeln department with a blade-shaped leg on the formation of the mentioned fibulae (^[23], p. 65, 66).

Fig. 4. Developed form of cruciform Norwegian fibulae: 1 – S?ndreGammelsr?d mound; 2 – Skr?ppa mound; 3 – Lunde mound (1-3 - ^[23], Pl. XLIV, XLV).In the second half of the V century A.D., the time of the beginning of the spread in the west of Scandinavia (Fig. 3) of cross–shaped fibulae with a scapular leg, fibulae with such a leg in the Baltic lands were replaced by fibulae with a stellate leg - early specimens of the department of Sternfu?fibeln.

Fig. 5. Distribution of developed forms of cruciform fibulae in Scandinavia (^[23], fig. 13).It should be assumed that the peculiar shape of the body of Gammelsr?d fibulae originated mainly within the framework of local traditions with an emphasis on earlier fibulae with the extension of the end of the leg of various shapes.

However, the presence on the shoulder-shaped extensions of the legs of Gammelsr?d-type fibulae of round stamp impressions, also known on the fibulae of the Western Balts, still suggests a connection between the creativity of Scandinavian jewelers and the traditions of Sambian masters. Fibulae with a scapular-shaped leg, often decorated with luxurious decor in the style of Nydam and equipped with garnet glass inserts, spread in Southern Scandinavia in the second half of the V century AD (^[24], S. 62) and cause their derivatives to appear in Eastern Pomerania in the form of fasteners of the Dzierzi?cin type (^[25], p. 25). The legs of these clasps served as samples used by jewelers of the Vidivarii and early Prussians when creating fibulae with a stellate leg of the Bitner-Wroblewska types III, VI and VII (^[25], p. 26). At the same time, some Prussian fibulae retained rudiments of Nydam-style decor on the shoulder-shaped legs.

So, it was possible to establish the representation of the three above-mentioned signs of the Ryazan-Oka cross-shaped fibulae (Fig. 6) on their almost analogues from the southwestern tip of Scandinavia.

Fig. 6. Early forms of cruciform fibulae in the Ryazan-Oka region and in neighboring lands: 1 – an accidental find at the Coastal burial ground-1 (Ryazan region); 2 – a find from a destroyed burial at the Yerkhinka burial ground-1 (Ryazan region); (archive of the Shilovsky Museum of Local Lore).However, on Scandinavian cross-shaped fibulae, they are realized on the centennial time range.

If the trapezoidal shape of the end of the leg is represented on the cruciform fibulae of the Scandinavians already in con. IV – beginning . V centuries AD (Fig. 3,4-6), then a rectangular plate (cast with a fibula in the same shape) overlaps the cruciform design of the clasp after about a century (^[21], Abb. 122,15-18). At the same time, fibulae of the Gammelsr?d type acquire a scapular leg.

 The comparison of Scandinavian and Ryazan-Oka fibulas of the initial phase of the epoch of the Great Migration of Peoples allows us to draw the following conclusions:

1.      Two of the three features of the Ryazan-Oka fibulae (the cross-shaped design of the lower part of the clasp and the trapezoidal shape of the leg) are realized in Scandinavian fibulae in con. IV – beginning . I.R. Akhmedov dates the appearance of Ryazan-Oka cross-shaped fibulae with this time range (^[18], p. 111).

2. The creation of the Ryazan-Oka fibulae of a rectangular plate that overlapped the cruciform structure at the end of the IV - V century A.D., it may be worth comparing with the appearance of the same plate on the Scandinavian fibulae of the V century A.D. – beginning. VI century (see above). Thus, the date of the formation of the Ryazan-Oka fibulae, which from the very beginning of their existence possessed the three above-mentioned signs, is probably possible to transfer from con. IV – beginning . V centuries A.D. on the V century A.D. – the beginning. VI . Or consider the Scandinavian fibulae to have arisen together with the Ryazan-Oka ones on a single basis.3. It is also possible that the development of fibulae with both rhombic and scapular/triangular legs has led to a similar development of Ryazan-Ok and Scandinavian fibulae (despite the fact that their prototypes have been tracked in Scandinavia), as a generally understood status symbol of military culture.

Their creators could see their prototypes for their products on the battlefields that shook many regions of Southern Europe during the era of the Hun wars. Their bearers in the diverse tribal armies of the northern Germans were so statuesque that the Ryazan-Oka cross-shaped fibulae imitating their details of the headdress for many decades became an indicator of the high position of their owners - both men and women and even children - for the population of the Pooch region, many hundreds of kilometers away from the battlefields for the legacy of the Empire (^[6], p.121).The warrior from the burial of Undrich-90 as an elite owner of the Ryazan-Oka cross-shaped fibula

In 2021 - the first year in the framework of research on the Evolutionary Continuum of the genus Homo under the section "Anthropology of ancient and modern populations" by the Center of Physical Anthropology, the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences - a reconstruction of the skull of the external appearance of a warrior of the V century AD from the burial of Undrich 2015 pit 90, (^[28]) was performed (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7. Reconstruction of the appearance of the warrior Undrich 2015 pit 90 in the form of a bust.In the summer of 2020, the Shilovsky Historical and Cultural Museum Complex from the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences received a signal from O.A. Radyusha, a researcher at the Department of Archeology of the epoch of the Great Migration of Peoples and the Early Middle Ages, about a new find discovered in the Ryazan region: the sword of the epoch of the Great Migration of Peoples.

The museum staff undertook work to identify the location and conditions of the find. As a result of the work done, an incomplete set of burial items found at the Undrich burial ground was museumized. Borok, Ryazan region by fishermen from Moscow in 2015. The destroyed complex was exposed in the edge of the crumbled excavation, left by the expedition of M.M. Makarov in 1981, in the central part of the northern side of the excavation. This allows you to link the burial to the excavation plan of 1979-1984, and continue the numbering started by assigning the newly found burial pit number 90, continuing the numbering started earlier. Specifying the year means the time of discovery of things – 2015. Thus, the cipher Undrich 2015 pit 90 was introduced for the analyzed burial.

The burial complex of the Undrich 2015 pit 90 (security surveys Gavrilova A.N.), included: a long two-bladed sword with a crosshair (Figure 8.1); a short single-bladed sword (Figure 8.2); spearheads (Figure 8.3) and a dart (Figure 8.4), as well as a double-bladed celt axe. Also - the remains of a cruciform diadem (Fig. 8.9) (SRKM KP 4562 - here and further the museum cipher is given). It should be noted that during an inspection in 2021 of the landfill outcrops, missing elements of a cruciform diadem in the form of a shield and a buckle identical to the one transmitted were found, which confirms the words of informants about the location of this complex. A skull was also found there and served as a source of DNA material.  In addition, information and photographs of missing belt buckle (Fig. 8.8), neck hryvnia (Fig. 8.6), fibula (Fig. 8.7) and horse harness complex (Fig. 8.10) were obtained. Among the burial materials, human bones with a unique skull were found, the discovery of which allowed to conduct the first serious anthropological study of the bearer of the culture of the Ryazan-Oka burial grounds and to obtain materials for DNA studies of this article. The warrior's skull was examined according to the classical craniological program (^[29]). The biological age of its owner, by the erasure of teeth and by the obliteration of the seams of the brain box, is estimated at 35-40 years (closer to 35). (^[28]).

Fig. 8. Burial items Undrich 2015 pit 90.

Some items from the burial of Undrich 2015 pit 90 have direct analogues in the materials of the Ryazan-Oka burial grounds, analogues of others, on the contrary, extend very widely up to Central Europe and the Northern Black Sea region.

Items made of ferrous metal are represented by weapons. These are spear and dart tips. The spear tip is asymmetrically rhombic (Fig. 8.3), 27 cm long, with a rhombic cross-section feather up to 3.5 cm wide, having a sleeve 3 cm in diameter. The tip of the dart is double-tip (Fig. 8.4) 20.1 cm long, with a triangular rhombic feather and spikes pulled down to 2.7 cm wide, with a sleeve up to 2.8 cm in diameter not brought to the end. The composition of the burial equipment of pit 90 included a spiral axe (Fig. 8.5) 17.5 cm long with a blade up to 5.5 cm wide and a sleeve 4 cm in diameter. A set of weapons from a spear, a dart and a celt is standard for most male burials, typologically related to the IV-V centuries AD. A laconically repeating set of weapons consisting of a pair of tips, an axe and, probably lost in this complex, a knife, is the basic set of weapons of carriers of the Ryazan-Oka culture. Together with an iron or bronze buckle and a pot, sometimes supplemented with a sulgamma clasp and one bracelet, it makes up the most massive set of inventory of Ryazan-Oka male burials, probably belonging to representatives of the community warriors of the local society. It is noteworthy that for the Ryazan-Oka society, this is more of a vigilante caste than a militia.  Men's burials with an incomplete set of weapons are rare and belong either to children's and adolescent groups, or to the graves destroyed in ancient times, part of the inventory of which has been lost. At the same time, the absence of a dart in the burial or weapons items in general is characteristic of both the burials of leaders and the graves of the VII century, the period of "catastrophic" events on the Middle Oka. That is, it is rather a ritual or situational exception that does not mark a lower social level of Ryazan-Oka society. Such standardization of weapons is in fact a "squad culture", an infrequent phenomenon among the archaeological cultures of that time, less known among the Germans, and in a more developed form known in the armies of Rome and Byzantium. This military set is a kind of ethnic marker of the warriors of the culture of the Ryazan-Oka burial grounds, widely spread from the II-III century, and existing with slight variations until the IX century.

 DNA data on the genesis of the Ryazan-Oka eliteIn 2019, the project "DNA-History of Russia" (A.S. Semenov) on the study of DNA samples from the materials of A.N. Gavrilov's excavations at the Undrich burial ground in 1983, obtained results that led to the publication of the first article on DNA data of Ryazan-Oktsev (^[26]).

She gave new arguments in favor of the multiethnic and multilingual nature of the Ryazan-Ok culture and pointed out the possible connections of the Ryazan-Ok people with the modern population of Russia. The identified parallels between DNA from the samples of the Undrich burial ground and the Dollkeim-Kovrovo burial ground (East Prussia) seem to deserve special study of the same epoch (^[27]), linking together two centers of the formation of early statehood – the Baltic-Neman and the Oka-Meshchersky. The similarity of haplotypes showed that individual individuals of the Undrich complex have more Western DNA analogues. Next, we present data on individuals from pit 31 and pit 90, for which we can talk about some similarity of haplotypes with an individual from Dollkeim-Kovrovo. Note that both individuals from Undrich had a cross-shaped fibula among the inventory.

Table 1. Highlighted values of Y-haplotypes of samples Do-364 (Dollkeim-Kovrovo complex), Undrich, pit 90 and Undrich, pit 31. Branch

  The customer and coordinator of the study was the project "DNA-history of Russia". Due to the small amount of bone material and the high degree of DNA degradation, only a subset of 27 possible Y-STR markers was obtained. To determine the haplogroup, the author's interpretations were used ("DNA-history of Russia"). The haplogroup was determined based on the results of a fragmentary analysis, taking into account the author's considerations and predictor data www.nevgen.org . The data are presented in YfilerPlus format in Table 1. DNA analysis clearly showed the presence of haplogroup N1a, with the most likely subclades being N1a-VL29.The available DNA results show a clear correlation.

The estimated determination of the VL29 subclades correlates with the presence of cross-shaped fibulae. For other sequenced individuals from the Undrich burial ground without cross-shaped fibulae, other haplogroups and subclades are determined.

The N1a-VL29 subclades are associated with the west of the distribution area of the N1a branch – with the Northwest of Russia, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Scandinavia and the Baltic and North Sea coasts. DNA suggests that a group of Ryazan-Oka elite using cross-shaped fibulae could maintain links with the North Sea coast through the west of the Baltic and the North-West of the Russian Plain, and through this territory cross-shaped fibulae could penetrate into the Volga-Oka interfluve. This hypothesis needs further study, and taking into account the development of new technologies, a priority task is to conduct a DNA analysis of the burial of Erkhinka-1 of the Ryazan-Oka culture, one of the oldest, where a cross-shaped fibula was found.The DNA History of Russia project thanks the Heart of Meschera project and personally A. Artyukhin and Y. Belousov for their decisive contribution to the financing of the research program.

The DNA History of Russia project thanks: V. Savransky, K. Neverova, V. Krupnov, N. Makogonov, K. Smetanin, M. Voinov, A. Molokova, Lance Tsninsky, S. Kovaleva, A. Simonov, M. Komova, A. Sheremeteva, A. Semenov, O. Mokrushina, E. Oleinikova, N. Lipatnikova, O. Tinyaeva, G. Tsvetkova, M. Zemskova, A. Butina, V. Usanina, A. Mayorova, T. Anisimova, I. Chepaykin, I. Ursova, R. Tikarev, I. Akhmetshin, E. Kabirov, I. Koryakina, D. Alekseevskaya, Larisa S. for financial assistance, as well as the media project "Archive of Academician B. A. Rybakov" (S. Pervov, A. Cheremin) and A. Nilogova (Khakniiyali) for financial and/or media support.